That Which Love Compels
by Idrelle Miocovani
Summary: If there is one greater force in our lives that compels us to action, then it is love. Gertrude and Claudius.


**A/N: **Written for a Victorian Quote Roulette Challenge. This takes place in the same continuity as my short stories _To Thine Own Self_ and _In My Memory Locked_ and their companion vignette _Moment_. This scene is an attempt to explain some of Gertrude's motivations. It takes place during Act III, scene ii, right after Claudius storms out from the Mousetrap play.

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**That Which Love Compels**

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"**That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger – not to be interfered with by speech or action which would distract the sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose."**

**~ George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans) "Silas Marner"**

There is much to be said about a man's eyes. I have heard that the eyes are the window to the soul; there must be some truth to that, for I always know. I can see his moods, his motivations, right in his eyes whenever he gazes at me. He is very controlled; he knows how to present himself to each member of the court, how to manipulate them to willingly do his bidding. He plays the court like a musical instrument, but he does not play me. I know the gap in his façade; his eyes are the only hole through which I can read the truth. Such is the way of men. They only see the grander pictures to which their manipulations will lead them; the smaller details are lost, forgotten, trifle details not to be bargained with. Only when faced by a woman does this gap become known, and an intelligent woman will keep that information to herself. My sex will always be more delicate in our plans, but more thorough in our guise.

That I can read him like an open book is something he often forgets. It is seldom that he confronts another woman, especially one with the amount of continual training I have had. I am truly the only woman to whom he speaks, and we have shared so much and our lives have become so entangled that he takes my trust for granted now. All he knows about me, I know about him.

We are standing in his chambers; the door through which we have only just passed is locked and barred. We are alone, free to speak openly. The servants have lit a fire; it crackles merrily, though it does little to change the tangible atmosphere of fear and anger that emanates across the room.

He is frightened.

Of course he is frightened; he has been issued a challenge, from the one person in the world who _could_ challenge him: my son.

My Hamlet.

"Gertrude," he says, his voice edged in a complex array of emotions. He is standing in the centre of the room, a glass of wine so tightly clutched in his hand that his nails are turning white. The wine slops back and forth, lapping against the glass' rim. He speaks my name with unbaited fury, but it is not directed at me – it is for the one for whom I am responsible.

I am sitting on my favourite chair, my hands calmly folded in my lap. I am anything but calm, but I know his rages. I must appear composed, otherwise I will only add fuel to the fire and he will become impossible to talk to. I know, I have seen them before. These rages of his are only natural – they are born from the passion he feels, and has always felt, for me and are kept alive by the fear that he will one day lose his most precious treasure: me.

He catches my gaze, and for a moment – one, very brief moment, displaced in time – and he calms himself. Despite the fire of the storm descending upon court and kingdom, he is able to push past it for just the briefest of moments. The effect my gaze as upon him is almost magical, even though I know its source. He trusts me explicably, for it is for each other we have committed many sins. We are much more than husband and wife, we are collaborators.

His eyes are so very blue, a mark of his house. My breath catches in my throat, as it always does. My previous husband had those same eyes – strong, intelligent, occasionally brooding, occasionally impassioned. For a fleeting instant, I see my first husband in his face, and our moment of repose is broken.

My first husband, my king, is dead. My second husband is monarch.

And I – I am his queen, by my own doing.

"He must be stopped," Claudius says. His hand is shaking.

"You are overly suspicious," I say.

"Hardly," he snaps. "You son seeks to overthrow me. That play, that… _abomination_ of the dramatic word, it was a warning. A warning directed to me. He will not stop until I am forced into abdication, or he kills me."

"Claudius!"

His name rings out sharper than I had intended. I pause, checking myself. I know what my son meant by the play. It bore the mark of his arrangements, his own manipulations – if anything, I have taught him well. He is only doing just as I myself have done in the past. Threats to obtain what you want, what you need… It is familiar ground.

It is ground I wish my son had never thought to walk. If only I had not been so insistent on him remaining with us! He should have been sent back to Wittenberg, for both his own sake and Claudius'.

Claudius… I look at him again, and I can see the fire still burning in his eyes. Claudius does not know that I know he killed his own brother, my previous husband. It was not difficult to discover, for one in my position, but Claudius would never fathom that I was privy to such knowledge. He would not want me to know that he carries the blood of fratricide on his hands.

I close my eyes and place a hand to my forehead. If only… _if only._ I can think "if only" so many times, but it will never change what has come to pass. Perhaps we have always been on this path, headed towards this moment, our family breaking against the edge of a knife, like waves crashing on the sandy shores of the sea.

I was a Saxon Princess, chosen to marry the Danish King at a young age. I never once had a say in what would happen to me; I had known that from an early age. Nevertheless, I grew up as a hopeless romantic, always dreaming of the day a young handsome prince would come and carry me off. But he never did, and I arrived in Elsinore on the eve of my seventeenth birthday to be married.

Seventeen… it is too young an age. Much too young. We women of nobility, we are sold across kingdom borders to men we do not know, all for our lineage and our wombs. At seventeen, I barely knew my own self. How could I possibly love a man I never knew? Though I know now that marriage and love are two very different things. I thought I would learn of love during my marriage, but no. He was always kind to me, though a bit solemn. I liked him, but I never once felt the flames of passion for him.

Those belonged to someone else.

The king's younger brother. Claudius.

Perhaps our doom was seeded from that moment when I met him wandering the halls of Elsinore. I was married before anything fruitful could ever pass between us. I knew I should have forgotten him, but I could not. And neither did he.

That was my first sin. I should have been happy with the life that had been assigned to me. I have known cousins who were married in a similar fashion and who suffered at the hands of their supposedly loving husbands. I never did. I did not have an unhappy marriage, but I could never bring myself to love my king. Once a romantic, always a romantic, hoping for something better. Passion and fire and flame, a burning secret love that would never die.

I longed for those things, but I would never receive them from my husband. But I saw them in the eye of his brother, and it was he with whom I fell in love.

My previous husband never knew. No one did. We were careful; we knew what would happen if we were discovered. Claudius would be exiled, and I would either be sent home in disgrace or worse, executed for adultery. I never meant to become an adulteress, but how can you control your own heart? Claudius brought me a freedom I could never have known had I never met him – freedom and excitement to alleviate the weariness of court life. It was a mad, mad life, one that I had never pictured. I learned to wear a façade, to keep my secrets buried least my husband ever ask.

But he never did ask. I never once showed that I was unhappy in our marriage, nor that all the joy in the world came to me in the form of his brother.

But it changed when I bore my king a son. My only child, the heir to the throne, an intelligent boy of great character and passion. Much unlike his father. Too much unlike his father. I admit, I cannot know – will never know – who my son's true father is. That is my second sin. To bear the love of two men – two brothers – yet only love one in return. Perhaps it is my own delusions, but I often see more of Claudius in Hamlet than Hamlet's own father. Claudius, being less inclined to think of such things than women, has always assumed that my son is his brother's child; the thought never once crossed his mind that Hamlet could be his.

But how could I tell either of them? I never could bring myself to do it. I never will. It is my own secret, the gravest, heaviest weight in my heart, and one I shall carry with me to my death.

Especially with our current circumstances. My family is falling apart. Hamlet has issued his threat, and Claudius knows exactly what it means. How Hamlet discovered that Claudius had murdered his father – or, the man whom he thinks was his father – I do not know. I will never know. He is far too intelligent for his own good; perhaps it discovered it by linking the facts together. I knew I should not have married Claudius so soon after my king's death – but for the first time in thirty years, I could display my passion without consequence, and love has never thought rationally. The night Claudius ascended the throne, I became that enraptured seventeen-year-old princess once again, though this time I was free to choose whom I loved.

I am torn. I cannot bear to see Claudius and my son in their individual wraths against each other. Nor can I simply stand by and watch them attempt to kill each other. Claudius has killed one; his own brother. He will not go to great lengths to avoid killing my son if Hamlet becomes too dangerous; he will simply get rid of him.

That is my third sin. I have married a murderer. I love a murderer.

What kind of queen am I? What kind of woman? I allowed my previous husband, my king, to be killed by his own blood under my very eyes and as soon as he was gone, I ran to the arms of his murderer.

I am wretched, wretched, wretched… but no more than all the others who allow their hearts to guide them.

There is a red splotch on the carpet. The shaking of Claudius' hands has spilled the wine from his goblet.

I stand up and take the glass from him. "You see too much," I say, setting the glass down.

"He has accused me of murdering my own brother!"

I wet my lips. Claudius does not know I know.

Though, truly, it should have occurred to him.

"Hamlet may suspect you of cruel and unnatural deeds," I say, taking his hands, "but he has no proof. He will not act without it."

"He is heir and already he is bloodthirsty for my throne." Claudius pauses. His fingers dip into my hands. "He will kill me if he can. I know it; I could see it in his face."

"He will _not."_ I speak firmly, though my thoughts are far different from my words. I do not need Claudius to panic. I need him to be calm. If he does not, he will begin his plots as soon as my back is turned.

I love my son. I will not let him come to harm. My long-time lover though Claudius may be, I will not let him go through with the plans I can see burning in his eyes. I love him, but I can no longer trust him.

Not when my son's life is in danger.

"I will speak with him," I say, drawing him close and kissing him on the cheek. "I will find his motivations and quench them if I can. You are both my family; I will not let a bloodthirsty feud bring us apart."

Claudius draws away. "Your son is mad," he says.

No. No, Hamlet is not mad. I know madness; this is not it. This is intelligence. Though to the unobservant eye, intelligence is of the same likeness as madness.

I do not speak my thoughts. It would be far too dangerous.

"I am his mother," I say. "I know him; let me speak with him. I will soon uncover the truth and put an end to this agitation that has taken hold."

He looks at me, a moment of understanding flashing in his eyes. I smile, the corners of my lips turning upwards.

He kisses me then, and my heart begins to pound, as it always has.

"Very well," he murmurs against my lips. "I will trust you with this."

"And I will not fail you."

Claudius does not respond, but takes me in his arms and kisses me again. I flush, my skin tingling with heat. My heart beats rapidly, and I cling to him, refusing to let go. It has always been like this. I can be silenced with a kiss – his kiss. There are times when I curse my heart for its weakness, but at the same time I revel in it.

Love is a great mystery; it compels us to fight to hold on to it, to never let go when it wishes to spread its wings and fly away. We must fly with it, or be forever lost.

Love is the source of all the misery in the world. I know that now.

_fin_


End file.
